The Fact Of Blackness Frantz Fanon Analysis

The struggles of being an African American is not very well understood by the majority of the population. For hundreds of years, there every day challenges – that privilege people would not bad – have become their own normal. Many authors have taken it upon themselves to write about their experiences and to educate the public. They use different types of literary devices to reflect their true intentions. In James Baldwin‘s “Notes of a Native Son” and Brent Staples’ “Just Walk On By: Black Men and Public Spaces,” the authors use language and punctuation to show their true emotion behind their words. The combination of syntax and diction allows Baldwin to develop his angry and bitter tone, in addition to Staples’ contrasting light-hearted tone.

In the essay “How It Feels to Be Colored Me”, author Zora Neale Hurston writes to an American audience about having maturity and self-conscious identity while being an African American during the early 1900’s through the 1920’s Harlem Renaissance. Hurston expresses and informs her audience about how she does not see herself as a color, and instead sees herself as all she is made up of on the inside. Her primary claim is that she is not “tragically colored” and she should not have a single care about how the world reminds her of how she should act about her race. Her essay chronicles her personal experiences in being an unapologetically colored woman and creates the argument that she should not ever feel self-pity for being black. She utilizes her personal anecdotes and weaves them with metaphors, analogies, and rhetorical questions in order to create an immersive experience for the reader. Furthermore, Hurston engages the reader with her slightly sarcastic, strong, and blissfully positive tone effectively creates a way with words that communicate her claims in an entertaining way.

“Battle Royal” provides a realistic portrait of the difficulty of being a black person in a

On the very first day of the class, Introduction to the Black Experience, we learned that people are defined by their culture and geography. We are also defined by the gaze of others and our own gaze. This realization led me to contemplate what the “black experience” means to me. As a first generation Haitian-American woman at Wellesley College, it has become clearer to me how important the language and culture of parents has been in shaping my identity. I have also begun to think more critically about how my identity as a woman of color separates me from black brothers as well as my white peers at Wellesley.

Imagine a person being labeled as inferior because of a complexion they cannot control. African Americans have been treated unfairly solely because of the color of their skin throughout history. The idea behind this is what is defined as colorism, which is the prejudice or discrimination against individual with a dark skin tone, typically among people of the same ethnic group (Oxford Dictionary). Colorism has been prominent throughout history, allowing discrimination and hatred towards people with darker skin, more specifically African Americans. In a world filled with racism, prejudice, discrimination, colorism is another factor that has similar effects when it comes to the treatment of African Americans. Martin Luther Kings Jr.’s, “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man both connect to the role that colorism plays in the lives of African Americans. Martin Luther King’s letter explicitly explains how society influences colorism and how it creates injustices. Ellison’s novel gives further insight on the more psychological and personal affect colorism has on Black people by using lots of symbolism in the novel throughout the novel to portray it. Constantly being put down because of how dark someone is will eventually lower an individual’s confidence, knowing that they will miss out on opportunities simply because they have darker skin. Colorism negatively affects how people treat African Americans and also how African Americans feel about themselves.

In Ralph Ellison’s short story “Battle Royal,” the experiences of a Black narrator, specifically those molded by the brutal hands of anti-black violence, paint a pessimistic outlook on race relations and the ability for marginalized individuals to overcome the oppressive structures embedded in civil society. To construct this commentary, the text employs symbolism to communicate the ways in which systemic and structural anti-blackness suppresses and oppresses Black communities.

In Kiese Laymon “How to Slowly Kill yourselves and others in America” and Brent Staples “Black Men and Public Spaces” both essays deal with being an African American man but the authors respond in a different ways. At one point in history being an African American wasn’t always the easiest but two Authors shared their stories about the experiences they had which were very different. Although the color of their skin is the same and how they treated was as well both authors take different precaution’s to handle the situations they were in to persuade the audience on how to deal with the effects of racism. Both authors show their hidden message through the actions presented throughout the essays. Laymon`s casual tone and will to fight make

A lack of self-awareness tended the narrator’s life to seem frustrating and compelling to the reader. This lack often led him to offer generalizations about ““colored” people” without seeing them as human beings. He would often forget his own “colored” roots when doing so. He vacillated between intelligence and naivete, weak and strong will, identification with other African-Americans and a complete disavowal of them. He had a very difficult time making a decision for his life without hesitating and wondering if it would be the right one.

The memoir “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston, was first published in 1928, and recounts the situation of racial discrimination and prejudice at the time in the United States. The author was born into an all-black community, but was later sent to a boarding school in Jacksonville, where she experienced “race” for the first time. Hurston not only informs the reader how she managed to stay true to herself and her race, but also inspires the reader to abandon any form of racism in their life. Especially by including Humor, Imagery, and Metaphors, the author makes her message very clear: Everyone is equal.

Before laws were passed for equality, African-Americans had a difficult time coping with being undermined by whites. This led them to build their own communities and remain among their own. The story “How it Feels to be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston was written in 1928, about her moving from a community of her own kind to neighbors who discriminated against her and her family. Though a person’s environment can affect how they see himself/herself or how others might perceive him/her, difficult times does not exactly mean that a person will become bitter or vengeful about it.

In the world of segregation crises “Battle Royal” by Ralph Ellison is about a boy who just finished high school years and receives an invitation to present his valedictorian speech to the wealthy white men in town. Ellison’s protagonist reminisces about his naive life, 20 years before when the story was published in 1947. He grew up in the deep south of America in a town where prejudicism and racism was prominent. During this time the South is segregated because of the Jim Crow Law. The story shows the conflict between the races of black society and white society back in the early 1900s when segregation laws was in place. As I was reading the story I can see clearly that the battle the African-Americans are fighting for, are both mentally and physically. “Battle Royal” helps us understand the struggle of a young black man who is trying to survive in a society where white people are dominant over the lives of the black people. The young man is feels conflicted on how to live a life that is successful and prosperous in life. He is torn between his grandfather’s last words of advice and the wishes of the white society in which he longs to please but because of the lack of equality between black and white in the setting he is unsuccessful in achieving anything.

I am an Asian-American woman living and working in the global city of New York. Growing up in an international city allowed me to become a multicultural individual and develop into a young woman different from my counterparts in Asia and here in the United States as well. I was taught by my parents not only the values of a Chinese culture but also to strive to enhance my strengths and to go forth and establish a successful career in business while always relating back to my Chinese roots. These values of diligence, perseverance and selflessness influence my everyday work and personal life.

Being subject to racism and discrimination is demeaning and debilitating. In fact they can lead you to anger. “Relatively speaking, however, I never fared as badly as another black male journalist.”(paragraph.8) Stemming from racism is common when someone is mistreated or falsely accused of something because of their race. “Mistaking the reporter for the killer, police officers hauled him from his car at gunpoint and but for his press credentials would probably have tried to book him. Such episodes are not uncommon. Black men trade tales like this all the time.”(paragraph.8) Staples portrays anger using euphemism and implies that the anger sterns from stereotyping of African Americans. These real life experiences and the vivid imagery give the reader an acute awareness into the harmful effects of racism..

African American Psychology differs from other types of psychology due to the oppressive nature of America’s historical and present day society. This constant and recurring nature of oppression has had several negative impacts on the psyche of Black people as a whole. African centered psychology revolves around values of spirituality, interconnectedness, collectivism, and self-knowledge. However, due to oppressive societal perspectives, these values have all somewhat undergone a drastic change. This drastic change is deeply rooted in the occurrences of chattel slavery and colonization. Both of these violent aspects of African American History have contributed to a Black person’s struggle of obtaining a healthy racial identity. Developing a

The Souls of Black Folk broadens the minds of the readers, and gives the reader a deeper understanding into the lives of people of African heritage. W.E.B. Du Bois articulates the true meaning of the problem of the color-line through his vast knowledge of American history and descriptive personal scenarios. Du Bois